Stanley Cup Final blog: Evan Rodrigues

Florida Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues will be keeping his own blog throughout the 2025 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers. He will check in regularly with behind-the-scenes access.

In his fourth entry, Rodrigues talks about the Panthers’ dominating 6-1 win against the Oilers in Game 3, how Florida didn’t let up when Edmonton cut its lead to 2-1 in the second period and the “tough mental battle” awaiting the Panthers in Game 4 at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

After two really hard games in Edmonton – we almost played three full games with overtime in Game 1 and double overtime in Game 2 — and then you have long travel days there and back, I thought we did a really good job yesterday of kind of getting what we needed, doing our best to recover and mentally preparing for this game. I think everyone did a great job and it kind of showed tonight.

I think it was DJ Khaled probably that got us going. No, it was a good feeling coming out in front of our home fans. You go into enemy territory to start the series, it’s loud and the building’s rocking for them. I thought we got the fans into it right away and they fed off us and we fed off them and they’ve been incredible going back all the way to last year and I’m sure for the guys who were here the year before. Overall, just a great game for everybody.

Brad Marchand scoring that first goal for us, he’s just like fresh energy. Obviously, he wasn’t here last year. He won the Stanley Cup 14 years ago (with the Boston Bruins) but he just has that drive. He really wants it again and I think everyone feels that. Sometimes you need that. You need the fresh blood, and he’s stepped up in big moments. Everyone throughout our lineup, you go through the whole thing and everyone’s contributing and everyone’s doing their part. But he just seems to be making big plays at important times, and I think we’re all just feeding off it.

We have to stay out of the penalty box. That’s a big thing. It's getting a little bit out of hand. But I thought we came out hard, we were playing the right way, supporting the puck all over the ice and I think from there, it just kept building throughout the whole game.

Corey Perry got the power-play goal but huge goal by 'Reino' (Sam Reinhart 1:20 later) right? I think we just wanted to stay on it. You get to these points, and you have to learn to manage those situations and take care of those situations. We just got right back to work and that’s what you need to do. You can’t let them get momentum. You try to kill it right away. Like I said, big goal by 'Reino' and I thought from that point on, we just rolled it over after that.

Now we need recovery the next two days, just like we did the last two. It’s not something either of us is used to. We haven’t had the two-day break between home games, but you just have to recover.

I think we’ve already turned the page to Game 4. We have to do the right things. It’s going to be a tough mental battle going into Game 4. It’s making sure we’re right and we’re ready from puck drop because they’re going to have a push, and we have to be able to manage that.